my blog-log of writing and other crafts

Well, if you have missed me and my (infrequent) blog posts, I have a couple excuses. One, I haven’t been making much recently, but I do have faith that one of these days I’ll feel inspired to dust off the ol’ sewing machine. Two, I’ve become completely addicted to nail art blogs. Like the come-home-from-work-and-paint-my-nails-at-midnight-to-unwind sort of addicted. It’s a relatively cheap hobby, but it’s also a slippery slope before you find you can’t leave the house without buying a new color, and you’ve fried your laptop by spilling nail polish remover all over it. I guess that’s another excuse I haven’t been blogging lately.

In any case, my friends, I wanted to share with you my favorite nail blogs with the hopes you find as much enjoyment in them as I do. Chloe’s Nails, the first one I stumbled upon about six months ago, taught me some magical things about scotch tape (check out the tutorials section). Nailside is another of my favorites with some great tutorials for tape or freehand designs.

Anyway, I used this tutorial to do my nails the other day (ok, night/morning, really). Thanks to Nails by Kayla Shevonne for the great design. I used french tip guides for the half-moon and dotting tools to make the spots.

Yesterday I had a great idea for a new and unconventional (at least for me) way to arrange tulips. Normally I would never think to cut tulips short, but for some reason I wanted to use this small, glass, fishbowl-looking vase. I cut the stems half-length and used one of the large tulip leaves to bind the bouquet together by wrapping it around them and stapling it together on the backside. I think it looks so pretty how they lean in the vase. Ah, the little things.

An old leather purse of mine came apart at the seams, so I decided to save the leather for who-knows-what. I eventually came up with an easy pair of earrings.

Materials

leather scraps

an x-acto knife and cutting mats

jewelry glue

gold-filled glue-on earring posts

gold acrylic paint

a small spray bottle (travel size is perfect)

a cardboard box or piece of poster board for spray painting

The Method

1) Cut four strips of leather, one long pair and one shorter pair. The shorter pair will be in front, so pick which side you would like to face outwards. I liked the seude-looking side of my leather.

2) Put some gold paint in your spray bottle and thin it with a little water so you can spray without clogging the nozzle.

3) Spray some gold splatters on the shorter strips of leather. My favorite technique: Put the strips inside a cardboard box and direct the spray at an inside wall of the box (instead of spraying the leather directly). The back-splatter created by spraying the side of the box makes nice splatters on the leather. Allow to dry completely.

4) Glue the top of the short strip to the top of the long strip. Glue the ear post to the back of the long strip.

Last spring I made this lace dress after seeing a little girl’s version in this tutorial on Project Run and Play. I thought it would be the perfect project to share with you on Valentine’s Day.

It was definitely one of the most time consuming sewing projects I’ve embarked on. The trip to the fabric store was an endeavor in itself. I purchased:

somewhere between 20 and 30 yards of white and ivory laces of different patterns and widths

Red RIT dye

cotton muslin to make a lining

bias tape for the neck and arm-holes

When I got home, I laid out all my strips lace on my work table in a giant rectangle. Then I sewed each strip together with a zig-zag stitch. When I had attached all the laces to one another, I used RIT to dye the lace and my cotton muslin red. The best part of the dyeing process is that each lace (being of different fabrici content) takes up the dye differently.

Then cut the muslin lining into a front and back piece for my dress. I sewed these together and tried it on, just to make sure I wouldn’t mess up my lace fabric. It fit! So I used a seam ripper to take the pieces apart again. I laid the muslin over the lace and cut two pieces of lace to fit my pattern. And finally, I sewed them together to make my dress, adding bias tape to the sleeves and neckline. This dress took a lot of work, but the end result is one of a kind!

Carol Bellamy of Meadow Vista, CA makes very elaborate wire art. My mother has given me two pieces by Bellamy as gifts-for-no-special-occasion (as I’ve mentioned before, my mom is awesome!). Each sculpture Bellamy creates is crafted from a single length of wire, ranging in length from 3 feet to 350 feet. Having worked with wire for jewelry on a much smaller scale, this blows my mind.

I first saw the wire tree while window-shopping at a gallery in Auburn, CA. I thought it would be perfect for displaying earrings (if you’ve seen my San Francisco apartment, you know I have, one, a ton of earrings and, two, very little space for art that isn’t “functional.”)

Air Plant Garden Tutorial

The first piece of Bellamy’s wire-art my mom gave me was this starfish. I once told my mom my earliest memory consists of collecting starfish from Pacific tide pools, but I seemed to have blocked out the devastating part where she made me put them back.

So, in the name of functional art, I turned this starfish into an air plant garden. You’ve probably seen this done recently with driftwood and terrariums. It’s easy! You will need:

Arrange your air plants until you are satisfied with their placement. Put a dab of hot glue where you would like to stick a plant. Let the glue cool for a few seconds so it’s not too hot (you don’t want to burn yourself or the plants). Stick your plants to the glue. Repeat until finished. Most air plants like to be spritzed with water every day or so. Don’t forget this part or you will be buying more air plants before you know it.

If you’d like to learn more about Carol Bellamy’s wire art, you can visit her website.

These were inspired by a pair I saw in Sundance. I like the mix of gold and silver and the iridescence of the labradorite. To make them, you will need:

two labradorite rondelles

2-4 gold disks

2 sterling silver head-pins

2 small sterling silver round beads

sterling silver beads

2 gold-filled ear-wires

round nose and flat nose jewelry pliers

Start by putting one small silver bead on your head-pin. Follow with the labradorite rondelle and the two gold disks. Add your silver beads until you reach your desired length, and then bind off the head-pin with a wrapped loop. Attach to your ear-wire. Repeat for the second earring.